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Latest climate science

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The Arctic is sending a very loud and clear message to the political leaders of this planet: NOW is the time for action.

Jim Leape, WWF International Director General

Warming Arctic’s global impacts outstrip predictions

WWF's new Arctic Feedbacks: Global Implications report
Warming in the Arctic could lead to flooding affecting one quarter of the world’s population, and lead to substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools, along with extreme global weather changes, according to a new WWF report.

The Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications report shows that numerous Arctic climate feedbacks – negative effects prompted by the impacts of warming -- will make global climate change more severe than indicated by other recent projections, including those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 assessment.

“This report makes for sobering reading, but it is a wake-up call to take action now, whilst we have the opportunity.  It is possible to stop the worst impacts of climate change. Today’s report sends a clear message that failing to do so will have devastating consequences for people and nature,” said Peter Hardstaff, climate change campaigner at WWF-New Zealand. 

Preventing dangerous climate change - WWF's global priority


Arctic Feedbacks Explained

Why does the Arctic melting have such severe global impacts?

The Arctic’s frozen soils and wetlands store twice as much carbon as is held in the atmosphere. As warming in the Arctic continues, soils will increasingly thaw and release carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, at significantly increased rates. Levels of atmospheric methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, have been increasing for the past two years, and it is suggested that the increase comes from warming arctic tundra.

In a first-of-its kind assessment incorporating the fate of the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica into global sea level projections, the WWF report concludes that sea- levels will very likely rise by more than one meter by 2100 -- more than twice the amount given in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 assessment that had excluded the contribution of ice sheets from their projection. The associated flooding of coastal regions will affect more than a quarter of the world’s population.

What is WWF doing to stop this from happening?

The new scientific information from the report comes as Governments around the world are deciding how humanity will respond to climate change.  WWF’s global priority is making sure that when Governments meet at Copenhagen for the UN Climate Summit, they agree a fair, science-based and binding Climate Treaty that will prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

“We need a global deal to tackle this problem and New Zealand has to play its part. Today’s report is reminder that climate change impacts are global. A warming Arctic will have consequences for New Zealanders and devastating impacts on our neighbours in the Pacific Islands,” comments WWF’s Peter Hardstaff.

“But our Government is sending all the wrong signals to its negotiating partners. While others enact policies to reduce emissions, New Zealand abandons vehicle fuel economy standards and talks about digging up and burning dirty coal.

“This Government needs to think globally, base its decisions on the latest science rather than misplaced self-interest, and take positive action like the many New Zealand communities and businesses already reducing their own carbon emissions.”

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